In today's business organizations, it is often necessary to overview snapshots of the running data pertaining to the organization. For example, a large corporation with a complex sales organization, advanced inventory management system and a sophisticated production management system needs to monitor certain key values and parameters that indicate the overall status of the operation. The underlying data volumes are typically processed in a computer system, and there is need to extract the relevant information without delay. Organizations therefore typically rely on computerized knowledge management applications to convey the operational status of the company's activities. The knowledge management application can output the requested data in one or more of a collection of informational displays. Each informational display may have a particular visual format that is selected for the specific kind of data to be displayed. The informational display used for presenting the data is sometimes referred to as a business report, because it may be akin to a traditional paper based business report.
A modern business report is commonly constructed in a complex design tool where visual elements like charts, tables, headers and footer sections and user interaction elements like checkboxes, filter dropdown boxes etc. are arranged on the output area. In an additional step the elements are then bound to the data. The steps may occur in reverse order, starting with data selection subsequently screen elements are arranged. Commonly this process requires expert knowledge of the design tool and the functionality of the individual elements. It may be possible to create a report by copying an existing report, if the user can identify and locate the relevant parameter(s) to be altered in the complex report among the parameters which should be left unchanged.